27/02/2015

A message to former Minister of Social Affairs, HE Selim El Sayegh

There is not much time left

Unfortunately, what most people fail to realize is that it is no longer a question of "friendship". We are way pas this stage in Lebanon. It is now merely a question of survival. After a ship capsizes, the surviving passengers stranded on the lifeboats are forced by the circumstances to befriend everybody else, even those who may have been their worst enemies before the catastrophe. Nowadays, in Lebanon, we may find ourselves compelled to befriend our past enemies if we want to survive, and face the new barbarians. Let us bear these thoughts in mind. Everything is relative.

Once one agrees that, for us, it has become a matter of survival; one can pass on to the next level, and seek to find out HOW to survive by removing the obstacles to that survival. This can be done by tackling the details, but without losing sight of the broad picture.

Your “National Social Development Strategy of Lebanon”, dear minister, was a brilliant part of that framework. But, you must have soon realized that, if our Social Strategy was to be implemented successfully, the other related parts of the picture could not be ignored.

How can one develop a perfect social strategy and discount education, health, or social security?  All four are essential and tightly related working parts of a balanced “human development” program. They ought to be attended to at the same time.

And if one goes a step further one realizes that problems in other areas need to be similarly tackled.

How can one pursue an ambitious social policy and neglect the sectors that run the country’s economy: commerce, agriculture, industry, and telecoms?

And, how could one do that while the country’s infrastructure is shot to pieces and we are short of electricity and water, our environment is threatened, and our roads and transport systems are totally inadequate?

And, assuming we decided to address all these challenges at the same time, how could we manage it if we did not possess the means to do so?A previous finance Minister, Mohammed Safadi, had once declared that the country needs twenty billion dollars to set the entire machinery in order.

I do not disagree with his approach but I contend that the exact amount of the funds that we require can only be correctly ascertained once the entire program is effectively drawn up and every single initiative is carefully assessed, estimated, and priced out.

What we have done during the past ten years with regard to tourism, agriculture, industry, water, electricity environment, and education was not sufficient. Eleven other sectors ought to be dealt with in the same way, if we want to have a broad enough picture of our national problems, and a reasonable evaluation of the funds that are needed to engineer all the reforms at the same time, because this is exactly what should be done.

Experienced observers of the Lebanese scene must have long ago realized the futility of the efforts of all our previous governments in attempting to tackle our multiple problems piecemeal. Why they failed to point it out to our leaders has puzzled me.  Let us admit it. None of the seven plans that were mentioned in the previous paragraph stood a chance of being executed, basically because the broad picture, as well as the financing, and the will to do it were not there.

Have we finally learnt our lesson? Let us sincerely hope so. Because, unfortunately, there is not much time left.